In the 2022 Collaboration Data Benchmarking Report, just over a third (38%) of organizations said that they could not live without collaboration tools, while another 35% said that some of their teams could not live without collaboration tools. When asked how important collaboration tools will be 12 months down the road, 16% of organizations said they wouldn’t be able to live without them, while 37% said they will become more dependent on them.

This dramatic increase in organizations’ reliance on platforms started with the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing expansion of remote work. But collaboration app user expansion has continued each year since 2020, and there’s no doubt they’re here to stay.

Why are collaboration platforms beneficial? According to our survey respondents, the perceived benefits of collaboration platforms include:

• Larger distribution 
• Ease of use compared to email
• Availability on mobile devices
• Allow users to easily create groups for projects
• Provide project visibility (like a digital bulletin board)
• Increase productivity through multitasking 
• Easier to apply data governance policies compared with email

MS Teams is the Leader in Enterprise Collaboration but Slack is still Prevalent

Microsoft Teams remains the dominant collaboration platform for 79% of organizations that used collaboration tools in 2022. This number increased from just 55% in 2021. Smaller companies and startups in particular tend to use Teams or Slack as their primary method of communication; email is available, but isn’t the preferred option.

So why has MS Teams quickly become the preferred platform? The two main reasons are that It’s built into Microsoft 365 enterprise packages, which most organizations already use, and provides relatively easy back-end data management through Microsoft’s Security and Compliance Center.

What Are Organizations Worried About When it Comes to Managing Collaboration Data During Ediscovery?

The rise of collaboration tools is a good thing for organizations overall, but the fast expansion in the use of these platforms among enterprises has brought up concerns regarding how to manage the data they produce and specifically how to respond to eDiscovery requests for that data.

There are the answers respondents gave in the benchmarking survey.

• Organizations’ ability—or inability—to employ defensible preservation methods
• The implementation of governance rules and policies concerning collaboration data plus related training and enforcement
• Privacy, cybersecurity, and risk management
• The burden of managing collaboration data in discovery in light of current inefficiencies, difficulties in reviewing that data, and the frequent inability to find information
• The increasing volume of collaboration data and the associated costs
• Difficulty determining where, among various tools, specific data resides
• Lack of jurisprudence and judicial understanding of collaboration data

Overcoming Ediscovery Challenges Associated with Collaboration Data

So how can organizations stay on top of this overwhelming volume of collaboration data? The answer lies with technology. Organizations must plan ahead and put the right tools in place to adequately manage the increasing volume of collaboration data so they can efficiently respond to eDiscovery requests and subpoenas.

Survey respondents largely recognized this need: about 19% reported that they already had collaboration data management solutions in place, while 38% said they might invest in new technology depending on demand and 17% reported that they planned to invest in the next 12 months. The remaining 26% said that they were satisfied with their current approach.  

These percentages are relatively small considering the growth of collaboration application adoption. And while current solutions may be adequate, as data grows exponentially, it’s going to become unmanageable in a matter of years or even months, particularly if more than one matter arises.

Fortunately, advanced solutions built to handle the challenges of large enterprise data can help organizations apply information governance principles, defensibly preserve collaboration data, and respond to eDiscovery requests quickly and cost-effectively.

That’s why, when it comes to investing in tools to manage collaboration data, looking ahead is very important, because the future will be here sooner than you think. 

[View source.]